20 July 2008

The 70s, last decade of innocence before we crossed the ultimate border,the border of LIFE?

In 1980, in the "Diamond vs Chakrabarty" ruling, the United States Supreme Court held that that a live, human-made microorganism is patentable subject matter.

1987 : a genetically modified Oyster is patented

12 april 1988 : first genetically modified mouse patented

Jan. 1998 : Delta and Pine Land Co. designs a "repressor gene" that impedes reproduction of any seed it modifies, stopping natural reproduction like a contraceptive but IN the ADN. Monsanto buys the company 2 months after the public patenting.

This repressor gene is straitgh away inserted in the ADN of all Montsanto seeds to make them a PERISHABLE PRODUCT and not anymore a nature's creation, ruled by the essencial nature of LIFE : it's ability to freely reproduce, out of any logic.And of course, it is easy to imagine the huge profits made when all peasants to go the "supermarket" to buy seeds instead of doing what has been done since 15.000 years : save seeds from one season to replant them the following one!..

Slowly but surely the meaning of LIFE is being altered. The market and its logic of profit, embodied by firms like Monsanto, Novartis, Limagrain, Celera, etc and the lobbies behind, argue that this is always for the sake of man (and especially the thirld world man) that we get rid of natural seeds and go for sterile, and supposedly pesticide proof ones (this pesticide resistance is another big environnement issue by the way).

The arguments are not only questioned on a pure scientific standpoint, but above all they open the door to arguments in favor of

massive patenting of LIFE, and now HUMAN LIFE.Patented genes on human ADN are in courseA new race of human will emerge after a few generations (of modified reproductions), leading to PERFECT HUMANS?

The 60s and 70s were big decades of progress as for civil rights, when societies started to realise the dangers many greedy industries or politician had led us to.

The 80s and the 90s were dominated by the non-stop expansion of the market, with little concern for the meaning and consequences of it

Time to wake up again and oppose resistance to the slow but certain domination of market and profit logic into our lifes, and now in the ESSENCE OF LIFE

a good reading on these issues, by Jeremy Rifkins (Al Gore conselor among other things)